What a long strange trip it’s been! Just kidding. It’s been a pretty short normal trip. Nevertheless, it is interesting to stand at the vantage point of a year gone by and reflect on how things have changed. This December is particularly meaningful, of course, because Videogum didn’t exist last December. But even the Lawnmower Man birth cry of all the phones in the world ringing in unison–which is what we did for our launch party–aside, there are plenty of notable people and events from the past year outside of the inception of THE WORLD’S FOREMOST RESOURCE ON TRAMPOLINE ACCIDENTS.

Gwyneth Paltrow

After years of much appreciated silence, Gwyneth reappeared this year, and it appears she spent the past decade locked away in some Tibetan monastery somewhere, mastering the ancient art of being the worst. She was FINE in Iron Man, because she was playing a fictional character who does not exist. But the actual Gwyneth Paltrow was a walking nightmare of self-indulgent satisfaction. From her PBS series about traveling around Spain with Mario Batali like a couple of aging Talented Mr. Ripleys, to her lifestyle website, Goop, in which she throws it in everyone’s face that she likes clean spaces, as if we don’t all like clean spaces, you pampered condescending asshole, she is at the top of this year’s Worst list.

50 Cent

We like 50 Cent’s theatrically monosyllabic boast raps and simplistic hyper-sexualized robotic love songs, but this year he definitely proved that the well-worn adage “you can take the G out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the G” is patently false. If you take the G out of the hood and put him in a 37-bedroom mansion in Connecticut and have him create his own videogame, Apprentice-rip-off reality show, and self-directed movies based on his new album that’s a watered down parody of his old album, there’s not much hood left. It’s mostly just the black Citizen Kane, wandering around in his diamond shorts, wondering why people don’t connect to the hard-living experience of an incredibly financially successful media mogul with terrible ideas.

Alan Ball

He created True Blood.True Blood is terrible.
Creators of terrible things are the worst.
People who are the worst are on this list.
Logic.

Brody Jenner

Brody Jenner will appear on this list every year until he is forgotten, and every year we will collectively pray that it’s the last one. But he’s been on TV since the Princes of Malibu in 2005, and his reign of self-absorbed mediocrity has not ended yet. And with the premiere of Bromance on December 29th, he has already solidified his place on next year’s list. ))<>((. The man has Bumble and Bumble sculpting mud for brains.

David Blaine

David Blaine is terrible, yes, but his latest “illusion” went so terribly wrong that you almost felt bad for him. From the constant snack breaks he took from hanging upside down, to the botched finale where he was clearly lifted up into the air by a crane, the whole thing was such a monumental FAIL that it would almost make you pity the guy, but then the next day he blamed the whole thing on George W. Bush (?) so fuck him.

Kathie Lee Gifford

We used to think Al Roker was the worst because his grinning embrace of high-energy mediocrity embodied everything that is wrong with middle class middle America, with its complacency and its fear of difference. But that was before we were introduced to this woman. She’s the embodiment of Mike Albo’s Underminer wrapped up in the psychologically fragile cipher of an aging would-be Broadway star who’s grasping with all 10 talons at anything that might stave off the slowly drooping effects of age, but there’s nothing there. She is grasping at air. Kathie Lee Gifford would eat your face if she thought that it would keep people paying attention to her.

Kathy Griffin

Look, if you like Kathy Griffin’s comedy, bully for you. It’s not for me, but neither are a lot of other really successful people who make a lot of money and laughter for the people, so that’s not my beef. But the woman is a liar. If she would simply drop this whole Life on the D List schtick and make peace with the fact that she’s a wealthy, popular celebrity with a hit TV show, then we could all move forward with our lives. I’m not even saying that she has to change the name of her show, but enough with the put-upon frantic tap dance routine. Work that shit out in therapy, or in your infinity pool.

Kim Zolciak

It’s tempting to feel bad for The Real Housewives of Atlanta’s Kim Zolciak. She’s almost a tragic figure. Despite the fact that she made up a completely unacceptable story about one time thinking for three days that she might have cancer as if that made her a “survivor,” the fact of the matter is girl does wear a wig, most likely due to some kind of health issue. She was also recently dumped by the married man she was dating, and probably hates the shit out of herself. The rest of the cast seems to despise her, and she was carefully edited by the producers into the villain of the show. Nevertheless, almost all of this is her own doing. It’s her own dark, insatiable hunger for attention that brought her to this. And anyone who goes on a reality TV show with their children is a fucking bad parent, case closed.

M Night Shyamalan

Oh man. This guy. Where to even begin. The chokers? The self-aggrandizement? Or should we just begin with the tone deaf unintentionally hilarious-but-so-hilarious movie he made about KILLER TREES? M. Night Shyamalan has been terrible at his job for a long time, with movies like Signs and Lady in the Water ranking among the worst movies of the past decade, but he really outdid himself with The Happening. In fact, it was so bad that you almost want him to keep going, just to see what his self-indulgently, filterless retard brain will come up with next. Almost. But actually you want him to stop.